Southern Hospitality

While driving down to Florida from my home in Virginia, this week, I was amazed by the large number of cars driving down I-95 bearing license plates from New Jersey and New York.  My unscientific estimation put the cars from those two states to be equal to the sum of the cars from everywhere else, including whichever state we were passing through.  It was remarkable.

I am glad that the citizens of New Jersey and New York like to come down to the south for vacation and relaxation.  I welcome them and wish them all a great time.  I trust that they found our southern states peaceful and hospitable.  I expect that the vast majority of them experienced no concern for the proliferation of guns in the south.  Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida all have concealed carry laws and a few have open carry laws.  They all allow us rednecks to possess those ugly battle rifles which the liberal anti-gun media have called "assault rifles" and which have been banned in New York and Connecticut.  I myself was sitting in the restaurants and buying gas right beside these vacationers from the north while wearing my .45 automatic handgun in my belt.  I was aware of other southern state natives wearing their handguns as well.  I trust that we did not intimidate the northern visitors.  In fact, I suspect that the idea that they were in the room with gun totin' rednecks never crossed their minds.  But that's OK.  We wouldn't think of hurting them and we sure as hell weren't gonna let anyone else hurt them.  So this picture of the beach is how they see our states, the ones with the guns.

Unfortunately, they are not so hospitable to us.  If I were to travel to either New Jersey or New York and caught by their police, I would be locked up for three years and branded for life as a felon.  Such is the plight of Shaneen Allen, a 27 year old mother of two children, who was legally permitted to carry a handgun for protection in her home state of Pennsylvania.  She naively drove into New Jersey.  During a traffic stop, she volunteered the fact of her handgun and was shocked at the reaction.  It was arrest and felony charges.  She is awaiting trial now.  Pray for her and her children.  This picture is how we see their states and I will not be visiting them.

Again I say to the good people of the northern states, "Welcome to the south."  However, here is one word of advice.  Be careful while visiting our states because, like everywhere, we have criminals.  Criminals like easy targets.  Why do you think we are carrying?  Those criminals can recognize your license plates as easily as I can and will be confident that you are not armed, because your state's gun restrictions are not exactly a big secret.  So our criminals may see you like this:

But then again, you may be used to such treatment from your own homegrown criminals.